Many conventional systems and methods exist for transferring digital information from content providers to various end user communication devices. Digital information includes video content, such as movies and programming events, music, and other digital information suitable for transfer from one or more content providers. End user communication devices include set-top boxes and residential gateways, and mobile communication devices, such as personal digital assistants (PDAs), personal computers and smart phones. Typically, systems and methods for transferring digital information to various end user communication devices involve some sort of digital rights management (DRM) format or scheme that usually includes encrypting the content to be transferred and providing one or more decryption keys to authorized users of user devices for decrypting the encrypted content.
In addition, the digital nature of current media presents significant challenges with respect to protection of rights of such content. In particular, current home media hubs and personal or local networks have difficulty protecting high-value content against, for instance, unauthorized copying within the network. These problems are compounded when content is distributed within a personal network, and stem from a lack of capabilities of maintaining and enforcing copy protection and DRM rules, as well as from the translation from incoming and outgoing copy protection and DRM rules to those of the personal network.
For instance, a copy protection rule may indicate a value of “Copy Once”, which requires the recorded content to be treated as “Copy No More”, preventing further copies to be made. If the user wants to make a permanent recording, the content will be marked as “Copy No More” and all outputs will be set accordingly during playback. On the other hand, if the recording is only temporary, such as a pause buffer, and will be deleted soon after the show/program is over, the content must be treated still as “Copy Once” and all outputs must signal the copy protection as “Copy Once”. The user's intention with the content is not always known at the outset of a recording. Thus, it is possible that the user may change the user's mind during the recording, thereby changing what started as a temporary pause buffer recording into a permanent recording. Such a change may not be possible in certain instances because the content may already have been marked as “Copy No More” during copying into the temporary pause buffer.